Mary Smith and The Three-Headed Dog

1. Purple Frosting

(Lidia: I haven't written anything in a while and wanted to have fun with something. Hope you like it.)

Disclaimer: I do not own or profit off of Harry Potter or any of J.K. Rowling's copywritten intellectual property.)

Mary Smith

First Year: Mary Smith and the Three Headed Dog

"Cerberus. The beast said to guard the gates to hell. What's a gate to hell doing in a school?"

~Mary Smith

Chapter 1: Purple Frosting

All my life I knew I was destined for something different. Different from everything I've ever known, everything I was raised to believe-- just everything. I never knew exactly what, but I could feel it in my heart. My very soul burned with the need for freedom. For anything but this. I was screaming inside but nothing could be heard...

...or maybe it was just a childhood fantasy.

"Stop your fidgeting, Mary," my mother chided with a pinch to my arm. My hand jerked up to rub the offended area underneath the poofing sleeve of my church dress. "And stop your frowning."

I sat on my hands as I normally did when she complained. "Yes, ma'am," I sang in my southern drawl I'd acquired during my years here in Mississippi. I never knew anywhere else. I was adopted as an infant. I didn't know anything about who my real parents were. I'd like to have imagined they were great people. My father would have been a mission doctor helping those infected with AIDS in Mozambique or a CIA intelligence officer busting human trafficking rings all over India. My mother would have been a famous artist, traveling the world and learning to speak over 50 different languages. She would meet my father in Italy during his respite and they would fall madly in love over a black olive and mushroom pizza pie- that was my favorite pizza.

"Pay attention," my mother hissed with another pinch. Just like her pinches, she had shattered the illusion of my parents being anything other than horrid sinners. She told me of how she rescued me from a strung out teenage prostitute whom had seen fit to leave me in the trash. There was no telling who my father was.

Father Evans continued to drone on about the righteousness of the lord and rewards to those whom remained devout in these times of sin and shamelessness. "And now, let us all rise in one last hymn before you leave here tonight. Blessed Be..." The choir started in and for once I was glad we were not in the front pew as was custom. I was coming down with a cold and had, thus, managed to lag behind enough so that the other 'devout followers' of our church could grab the first seven rows. Mother would not let me hear the end of this.

Father Evans had placed some sort of spell upon the women of our small town. With his good looks, charm, wit, and full head of hair- unlike my father's rug, he had the whole female population yearning for him. Even some far too young for such yearnings to be considered descent. He was recently widowed and raising a daughter left behind from his marriage. Jubilee was the bane of my existence with her insults about my being adopted or her overall smugness. She was cute as a button and evil as Satan. But she was Father Evans' daughter so everyone loved her. My mother was one of his most rabid fans. Despite being married to my father, she was completely and entirely in love with our town priest. Therefore, she was completely and entirely in love with God. The weirdness of it all was a sin in and of itself. Yet my father remained oblivious, whether willingly or not, I don't think I will ever know.